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Wednesday, August 24, 2016

TOS Review - Can Do Cubes

The sounds behind the letters that build words is very important to learn as part of a solid foundation toward reading as is a multi-sensory and hands-on approach for my one particular child, so I was thrilled to get a chance to review Can Do Cubes from just2ducks LLC jollyliteracy.com.

What are Can Do Cubes?

By using the Can Do Cubes, children learn the letter and digraph sounds so they are able to form complete words and sentences using a multi-sensory approach. With the idea in mind that we build words out of individual sounds, Can Do Cubes allow the child to literally, in a hands-on fashion, build words. The Can Do Cubes are based on the science of synthetic phonics, which simply put means the spoken sounds. Though, when you throw in all of the multiple sounds that make up syllable sounds in the English language, it can become overwhelming to young learners trying to make sense out of it all and read or write a word. Learn more about the science behind the Can Do Cubes and what synthetic phonics is all about.

The cubes can be used by themselves as a hands-on teaching tool or alongside a complete phonics program, like Jolly Phonics.

THE CHILD IS ACTUALLY BUILDING WORDS WITH HIS OR HER OWN HANDS!

There are 44 sounds that make up the English language. The Can Do Cubes break these sounds down into Stage 1 that presents a simple alphabetic code of 27 six-sided letter and letter combination sound cubes. Stage 2 presents a more complex alphabetic code with 30 cubes of letters, capital letters, punctuation and then 2 cubes that are connected with a string to represent split digraph sounds. The kit I received included:

DVD With Interactive Demonstration of Sounding Out of Letter/Sounds Presented by Debbie Hepplewhite, who is a synthetic phonics consultant

Phonics Chart

Word Chart

Online Templates and Worksheets in PDF Format for printing

How Did We Use It?

We also used the Can Do Cubes with Jolly Phonics, which is sold separately.

Before I used them with my child, I went over the teacher/parent material included. To help with this, I received:

A DVD presenting a background, the science behind synthetic phonics, and a demonstration with Debbie Hepplewhite, a synthetic phonics specialist
A CD with PDFs of Templates and Workbook Pages for Printing
2 Booklets with Instruction Tips
3 Posters of Word Lists and Phonics Rules
Online resources

I sat down with my youngest daughter to see how these cubes worked. I printed out lesson pages from the pdf files included on the CD 133-page workbook in PDF format. We also used them alongside her Jolly Phonics book.

What Did We Think?

I have to tell you right off the bat that I was super impressed with the quality of these blocks. I had no idea what to expect when I was chosen to do this review, and I was happy to see that they were crafted so well. They feel good to hold, they are smooth so as not to splinter off into your child's hands, and the letters are engraved into each block not to mention the packaging is so organized and inviting. They are all marked so that they can easily be placed back into their original box when done using them for the day, which is a very good thing because my daughter decided at one point to build a huge pyramid-like structure with the blocks leaving them completely mixed up.